Jewelry Settings to Enhance Visual Color Appearances

Oval in Faux Setting

When buying diamonds as an investment, most people would probably be going for the best characteristics that they could. A colorless, flawless, ideal cut diamond is a stable and valorous investment indeed.

However, most of us buy jewelry for the practical purposes of wearing instead of locking them up in safes. And most of us cannot afford the budget for the best in all categories when it comes to the 4 C’s.

How to Make Your Diamond Stand Out

Yet, one thing is for certain. We all want to make our jewelry look as good as they can be. So if there’s a way to do that, most people would probably like the yellowish tint of their diamond to be hidden away instead of being highlighted.

Disclaimer: there are people who love having a warm look to their jewelry. I’m not saying lower colored diamonds are ‘bad’. It’s just that the market has huge preference to colorless stones and most people don’t like yellowish looking diamonds.

Back in the days when I first thought about enhancing a diamond’s color, I had an idea of doing it by incorporating them into jewelry instead of subjecting the stones to treatments. My instincts told me that I should match it with a metal setting that’s of similar color in order to hide the color tint of the stone.

My basic theory was that colorless stones should be put into lightly colored, reflective white metal, such as platinum, white gold or silver (!). Whereas lower colored stones should be placed into gold colored settings. For many, this seemed to go against the common approach of visualizing things and I know you probably sense the contradiction here.

It turns out that well cut H-J diamonds with a slightly yellowish body tint would appear rather colorless when mounted in a brighter setting such as one made of platinum or white gold. If that very same stone was mounted into yellow gold instead, it would have its yellow tint slightly emphasized.

The second reasoning may seem weird at first as it may seem to be counter intuitive against logical thinking. However, my senses still prove it right when we examine the finished products.

What Is The Type of Look You Want to Achieve?

Ultimately, it really depends on what you want to achieve in a ring’s look. For most people wearing yellow gold rings, chances are, you are probably already looking for that ‘warm’ look.

In my opinion, a lower colored diamond (for example, a K colored diamond) will look very nice and blended into yellow gold mountings. The optical trick here is that most people can’t easily tell the color differences due to the environment it is surrounded by.

If you want to create a look with higher contrast, a D-F color diamond will stand out more from a yellow gold setting. The yellow tint that the diamond “absorbs” from the setting will be obvious when you compare it side by side to another D-F diamond in white gold. While setting a colorless diamond against a colored mounting isn’t common, I do know a lady who has her ring set in this manner. She absolutely loves her ring for the contrast and unique look.

Vice versa, you can also create a contrasting look by mounting a K-M colored diamond on white gold settings. Personally, I think this is not a good idea as it can make the diamond’s yellowish tinge stand out like a sore thumb. After all, the general perception is that hues of yellow is undesirable.

Here’s my advice for you. Stick to what you are comfortable with and try to find your own style. Beauty is in the eye’s of the beholder and nobody can tell you what is right or what is wrong with a particular look.

You can click the following links to see real life examples of ring settings made of yellow gold and platinum to get a better idea on how they look like.

A Colored Diamond is Not Always of Lesser Value

In most cases, we want our diamond to be colorless and transparent. However, there are rare gemstones where vivid colors are actually unique, price-increasing attributes. Did you know that only one out of every ten thousand diamonds is that special?

And in the case of these fancy colored diamonds, we pay less emphasis to the other attributes of the stone. The color (for example, fancy pink) becomes the main characteristic and defines the stone’s character. To learn more on this, you might want to check out http://coloreddiamondguide.com.